Your Heart’s Prayer by Oriah from Sounds True

Somewhere beneath the surface of our wants and needs lies a deeper longing - a yearning
that connects us to who and what we are in our essential being. On Your Heart's Prayer,
Oriah takes you on an inspirational "journey into the soul's desires," bringing a new
vision to what it is that matters most.

Addressing a lack of fulfillment felt all too commonly in our culture today, Oriah
draws from her training in the tradition of shamanic medicine to show you how to
recognize - and respond - to your soul's true calling. With poetry, meditations,
exercises, and a blend of ruthless honesty and humor, she details the way to narrow the
gap between how we want to live and how we're actually living.

Excerpts from the books:

From Chapter Four "Learning To See" in What We Ache For :

. . . In creative work we seek to add our consciousness to what the world offers to us in ways that create new stories, images, and sounds that reveal insights, patterns and truths we may not have seen before. But to do this we have to be able to get our conditioned responses- the belief, for instance, that water should necessarily be depicted in paintings as blue- out of the way so we can see the fullness of the world within and around us. This is harder to do than we might think...More

from Opening The Invitation

Some days things unfold in my life in a way that make me wonder why I am so certain
that I need to diligently plan and work and try to make things come out right. Oh, I'm
not suggesting that planning and working don't sometimes pay off, don't sometimes
render hoped-for results. But when you follow the impulse that comes from a deep
stillness without the smallest thought or a shadow of an expectation about the outcome
and then watch as things effortlessly unfold in a way you would not even have dared
imagine, it makes you question all this trying, this dark certainty that everything...More

The Invitation

I wrote the prose poem, The Invitation one night after returning home from a party. I don’t usually attend parties but on this occasion, berating myself for being anti-social, I made an effort to go and be friendly. I returned home feeling frustrated, dissatisfied with the superficial level of the social interaction at the party. I longed for something else...More

from the chapter of The Invitation “The Commitment”,

And then I did only what truly had to be done to feed the children. I made sure they were reasonably clean and dry and well fed. I listened to them and let them know they were loved. I stopped trying to find a place where there would be no tension between my desire to work in the world and my dedication to my children. I started to look for and find a way to simply live with this tension, holding it without struggle or hope of resolution...More

The Dance

Shortly after I finished the manuscipt for The Invitation, three things happened in my
life: I discovered that the man with whom I had fallen in love and begun a relationship
two months earlier was an alcoholic; I had a mild heart attack brought on by
exhaustion; and I told my eldest son Brendan that he had to move out of my home. Having
just passionately articulated my soul’s longing in The Invitation-the heartfelt desire
to love myself, others and the world well-I was stunned and discouraged by how
consistently I was failing to live this sincere intent...More

"The Dance"

I have sent you my invitation,
the note inscribed on the palm of my hand by the fire of living.
Don’t jump up and shout, “Yes, this is what I want! Let’s do it!”
Just stand up quietly and dance with me...More

from the chapter of The Dance “Dancing with the Mystery”,

This is my secret that all other truth telling seeks to disguise: I have always felt the presence of that which is larger than myself.

This is my earliest clear memory: I am lying in bed, curled into a tight ball, listening with every cell in my body...More

from the opening chapter in The Call

This is a story about surrendering from a woman who has found surrender impossible. This is a story about stopping the war, my war, the one I have fought all my life, the one I have not been able to give up despite the fact that I have lost every battle and sin cerely declared myself out of action over and over again. It's a story about stopping the war with what is within and around me because I have simply had enough of fighting...More

"The Call"

I have heard it all my life,
A voice calling a name I recognized as my own.
Sometimes it comes as a soft-bellied whisper.
Sometimes it holds an edge of urgency...More

Click above to view Oriah’s Blog, “The Green Bough.” She will post musings and meditations on cultivating our inner lives and co-creating meaning in the world, every Wednesday.

Books

To order or read an excerpt from Oriah’s books, click on the front cover

"A remarkable book. . . . A fierce and tender presence, The Invitation’s wisdom could become a lifelong companion, engaging and awakening the original and unique rhythm of your mind and soul."John O’Donohue, author of Anam Cara

"The Call. . . . is a gift to us from a wise, funny, and honest teacher who knows the territory of the human heart and soul like few others." Joan Borysenko, co-author of Your Soul’s Compass

"To read The Dance is to invite all of the far flung part of yourself. . . . back onto the dance floor for a slow, sweet waltz. At the end of the dance, you have whirled yourself back into one whole person." Elizabeth Lesser, author of Broken Open

A spiritual exploration and practical guide to unleashing your creativity.

The story of how Oriah's poem travelled the world and, unbeknownst to her,
touched people's lives.

Oriah On CD

Oriah’s Newsletter

Oriah sends a newsletter by email three or four times a year. If you would like to receive the newsletter please send your email address to mail@oriah.org